Entrepreneurship @ Pratt
Engineering Spinoff Companies
Entrepreneurship is a key component of Pratt’s culture that involves student education, faculty participation and social responsibility.
How we educate entrepreneurs
In the complex, competitive world of technology driven industry, skilled engineers who understand the essential principles of business and law have a tremendous competitive advantage. Duke offers a Markets and Management Certificate for undergraduate students. In addition, the Pratt School of Engineering meets this need thorugh a one year Master of Engineering Management degree program that integrates specialized engineering courses with marketing, business, entrepreneurship and law courses taught by experts in the Fuqua School of Business and Duke Law School.
How our faculty engage in entrepreneurship
The Pratt School of Engineering is involved in a range of activities to enable faculty to engage in entrepreneurship. We regularly host guest lectures by venture capitalists and seminars on evaluating technology marketability and participate in formalized centers and programs with staff to aid in business planning and SBIR proposal development.
Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization is a program that closes the gap between ideas and the marketplace in order to move technology into the service of society. CERC fosters entrepreneurship by bringing people, ideas and resources together and serves as a portal to Duke research, education and commercialization programs. This center is directed by Barry Myers, Anderson-Rupp professor of biomedical engineering, associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, and assistant professor of biological anthropology and anatomy.
The Duke-Coulter Translational Partners Grant Program is an internal grants program that funds collaborations between clinicians at the Medical School and biomedical engineering faculty on technology projects that will ultimately impact patents and likely have significant commercial potential. This program is directed by Biomedical Engineering Department Chair George Truskey and Barry Myers.
How you can help with social entrepreneurship
Many people choose a career in engineering because they want to make a difference in the world through technology. At Pratt, we sponsor several programs that allows students, faculty and the broader community to reach out and have an impact. We invite you to join us in supporting these worthwhile programs.
Engineering World Health is a national organization that harnesses the resources of collegiate engineering programs for the improvement of conditions in hospitals of developing nations. EWH continues to expand and create new initiatives, including the CUREs program and the Design for the Developing World class being taught currently at Duke. The Duke - Engineering World Health CUREs program is the largest non-profit business development competition in the nation. The program cultivates a portfolio of simple, brilliant engineering designs appropriate for the developing world, incubates these designs, creates sufficient data to facilitate rapid commercialization, and then aids in financing and implementing non-profit business models for the manufacture and distribution of cost-appropriate technology innovations to the world’s neediest people.
Engineers Without Borders - USA (EWB-USA) is a non-profit humanitarian organization established to partner with developing communities worldwide in order to improve their quality of life. This partnership involves the implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while involving and training internationally responsible engineers and engineering students. Students at the Pratt School of Engineering launched a Duke EWB Chapter in 2005 and hopes to engage students in at least one project a year. You can help this program by connecting our students with communities in need and sponsoring travel and project materials.